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Notes: Abstract The art of obstetrics is not a subject which is often discussed in the pages ofDiabetologia. However, as the care of the diabetic mother and her offspring is rightly an interdisciplinary responsibility between obstetrician, diabetologist and neonatologist, it is important that each has s. close understanding of the various problems. Dr. M.I. Drury (Dublin), speaking as an internist, raises a question on the optimum time and method of delivery of the baby; this has more than purely obstetrical implications. Drs. L. Mølsted-Pedersen (Copenhagen) and C. Kühl (Copenhagen and Klampenborg), obstetrician and internist from the longest-established joint obstetric/diabetic service in the world, present a Scandinavian view on the management of regnancy. Both centres have distinguished records in the management of diabetic pregnancy. The different viewpoints in Denmark and in Ireland are clear — in Copenhagen, therapeutic abortion is practiced in a pregnancy at risk of severe congenital malformation; in Dublin it is not. Dr. Drury quotes a perinatal loss of 13 of 285 pregnancies (4.5%) in the past 5 years, but does not include the recognised spontaneous abortions which, on his overall figures, are about 10% of conceptions. Dr. Molsted-Pedersen reports a perinatal loss of 3 of 201 infants (1.5%), excluding 17 spontaneous and 9 induced abortions. If these 9 aborted pregnancies, which were performed due to a risk of severe congenital malformation, were included as fatalities, the Copenhagen figure would be 12 of 210 (5.5%). Of course, we do not know if all those 9 fetuses were affected. The spontaneous abortion rate was 17 of 223 (8.0%). Thus, if total fetal loss is taken as the index, there appears to be little difference between the two centres. The clinical controversy on the timing and method of birth in the different centres will continue - pundits can be conservative as well as radical, and, as Dr. Drury remarks, the truth probably lies somewhere in between. The bottom line in reports on the management of diabetes in pregnancy used to be the perinatal mortality (from 28 weeks gestation to the end of the first week of life). With the continuing improvement in neonatal care, more babies who would have died during the perinatal period are surviving beyond the seventh day of life. As a result, their subsequent deaths are not recorded in many publications. Even greater emphasis will fall on the quality of life for those infants surviving with a major congenital abnormality (heart and neural tube defect) which produces profound childhood morbidity. Prevention of these congenital abnormalities is the most important aim of pre- and early conceptional care of the diabetic mother. Both centres which report their recent results in this issue would agree that there has been an improvement even in the past 5 years — the problem is to define exactly which developments account for the change for the better, and which previously-trusted techniques can safely be allowed to fall by the wayside.